Tolerance and Diversity Institute

News

Mar/1530

MDF, TDI and 17 May Appeal to Charter of Journalistic Ethics Against Palitra TV

On 30 March Media Development Foundation, MDF, Tolerance and Diversity Institute, TDI, and "17 May" lodged a complaint to the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics against Palitra TV. The complaint concerns the homophobic statements of Archil Chkoide, the representative of Eurasian Institute, which were published on Palitra TV web portal on March 1.

"We should separate from each other the statement made during the live broadcast and the circumstances when the media spreads the recordings of discriminatory statements and not indicates that homosexuality is not considered as a illness in the modern world. Moreover, editorial to some extent shares the respondent's position while presenting homophobic expressions as a headline "Homosexuality is a crime, and illness of soul and flesh ", - the complaint points out.

The authors of the compliant argue that Palitra TV breaches Article 7 of Charter of Journalistic Ethics, which states that "the journalist shall be aware of the danger of discrimination being furthered by the media, and shall do the utmost to avoid facilitating such discrimination based on, among other things, race, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinions, and national or social origins".

The NGOs believe that Palitra TV violated the Articles (31,32,33) of the Code of Conduct of Broadcasters as well.